California Missions

Yesterday, on our way to San Diego we tried to stop at the Mission San Juan Capistrano, but when we saw the line up to get off I 5 we knew we wouldn't do it. The swallows came back to Capistrano a couple of days before and evidently there was a big festival (I'd checked its website to try to avoid a surprise like that and nothing was listed!). So we drove a little further and went to Mission San Luis Rey de Francia (yes, St. Louis, king of France). It was a lovely mission with beautiful gardens and a nice self guided tour. We took several photos.
Today, we drove to Mission Dan Diego de Alcala which wasn't far from where we went to church ( so after our block meetings we went). It had rained during our meetings and there was a mass being held in the Old Mission church so we only took some photos of the front.
Having grown up in California, i have a great respect for the early Franciscan padres who built the missions over 200 years ago. It was fun to see a couple of missions I'd never seen before (I visited a number of the ones in northern California).
The photo on the bottom is Mission San Diego and the others are of Mission San Luis Rey.( The top one is of the lavendaria where the Indian women washed clothing.